After Caroline’s birthday party, see previous entry, Elaine and I drove across to Lower Slaughter, to stay with Jane and Glyn Davenport.
Have known Jane (nee Keay) since I was 14, when we met at a dance held by mutual friends, the Hanks. She did a magnificent Charleston; by contrast, I was confined to something like a wheelchair, after an emergency appendectomy – having collapsed part-way through the headmaster’s end-of-year speech at Bryanston and having been hurriedly ambulanced across Salisbury Plain to hospital.
Jane and Glyn had been at the party earlier today – and had invited us to stay, partly because Hill House was going to be bursting at the gills.
On arrival at Vine House, which is cheek-by-jowl with the weather mill, Jane, Elaine and I walked across to Upper Slaughter (identified after WWI as one of the Thankful Villages) in the evening sun, via Lords of the Manor, where Gray and Christina had their wedding reception many, many moons ago.
Then back to a magical supper and deep sleep in an attic room overlooking the River Eye, through scaffolding. Following an equally delightful breakfast, we headed back to Little Rissington for lunch with the remnant hordes. As Pat said when we recounted our adventures, there really is nothing quite like old friends.
Leave a Reply